Love Through My Eyes. Episode 8.

Whether you will see love through my eyes or through Tara’s eyes is only a question of time.

My name is Bolaji Afolayan, I celebrated my thirty-third birthday last weekend, I had friends and family over, I looked debonair in my Pierre Cardin suit, and shoes thirty-three never looked more handsome. There were games, laughter and plenty of pictures. When it was time to ask the celebrant any question, the only question everyone asked was when I was going to tie the knot. Through the question session, I had my eyes only on one woman. The only sad thing was she didn’t know it. My Tara.

I heard a lot about her from my school-daughter. One Friday evening years ago during my internship year, Busola visited my apartment as we usually do rarely due to my ever-busy schedule. She kept talking about one of her friends, testifying of how good she is, almost everytime we spoke, because we usually gist about boys in her life and the girls in mine. I was single and recovering from heartbreak.

All I wanted was to have fun and goof around; I wasn’t ready for a relationship. However, with each time Busola spoke about her so intimately I became interested in knowing who Tara was. I had seen her pictures on Busola’s phone and display pictures on BBM but I hadn’t met her. The day I was meant to meet her, she was so shy. I came to visit Busola in the hostel, here came Tara singing at the top of her voice as happy as she was about to enter Busola’s room. As she came in, she was taken aback and halted as she saw me; and then she said hi and ran out of the room. I laughed hard, how could someone be so hilarious.

I laughed even more when I saw her requests, but I’m still so grateful for those requests especially the Facebook request. It was going to be the media we would get to know each other better, with each mention on twitter and slide into her Facebook wall; I wanted to know this shy and funny woman. We chatted occasionally and she usually seem busy, whenever she text first, it usually made my day. We continued been good friends for years until about a year ago when it all changed.

I asked Tara to a date but the timing was wrong, I couldn’t make it and had to cancel; the second time, she had to cancel because of her schedule. After that, there was a long break between us until the day we met coincidentally at a restaurant. It was one of my favorite. We went on to meet there two more times and I felt the time was right to make my move. I asked for her phone number. This woman is so addictive! I couldn’t afford to stay away from my phone.

The beautiful thing is that she is always herself; her life goals make me dream bigger and she is always fun to be around her, I just didn’t know how to tell her I was in love with her, each time I felt it was right, I just cringe in. There was something holding me back.

Until last Friday evening, I wore the red T-shirt that she loved on me with a blue jeans trouser, used the black Orchid cologne and drove to her apartment. It was high time we gave a name to what we had between us.